Taylor Swift Recounts Dream She Had About an Ex That Inspired Her Song, 'Stay'

Ryan Adams interviewed his muse, Taylor Swift, for GQ magazine, and got her almost immediately talking about one of her exes.

The 40-year-old rocker, who recently recorded a version of Swift's entire 1989 album, asked the "Shake It Off" singer if a dream had ever inspired one of her songs. Swift was eager to answer that "All You Had To Do Was Stay" came to her while sleeping.

"I had a dream that my ex showed up at my door, knocked on my door, and I opened it up, and I was about ready to launch into the perfect thing to say," she recalled. "And instead, all that would come out of my mouth was that high-pitched chorus of people singing, ‘Stay.'”

From there, she wrote the track. "You go to say something else, and it’s just like ‘Stay, stay, stay,'” Swift continued. “And I woke up and I was like, ‘Oh, that was mortifying, but that’s kind of a cool vocal part.'"

"My version of it is like, ‘All you had to do was stay. Sorry about it. I don’t miss you. And now you’re back,'" Swift explained. As for Adams' interpretation, the 25-year-old artist thought he was saying, “All you had to do was stay. You broke my heart. That’s all you had to do."